roughly

1) oh, I’m very attracted to you physically
2) oh, I’m very attracted to your personality
3) oh, you’re a very good person and I need to lock this shit down immediately, because it’s never gonna get better than this

I have the happiest marriage I know of, I think!

Three realizations, in order:

1) oops, I stayed up until 3am with this person, I think I might be into her

2) oh my god, she’s more extroverted and energetic than me—I’m not providing all the energy I’m conversation, and I LOVE it

3) we had an argument healthily? and changed how we behaved? what?

what book?

I’m down!

so basically turns out the answer to “why do I always get what I want, when other people don’t” is “I find out what I want and I ask for it.”

true genius level takes for your timeline

Three things:

1) I’ve seen it done, because it had to be done—by my parents to handle infidelity, by pretty good pastors, by my mentors and friends

2) I’ve had it done to me, by those people, and was actually better for it;

3) I’ve admitted my desires enough to have to do it a bunch, and it works

That makes me willing to fight, because I *want* to teach the other person to do the same with me. I believe, really and truly, that conflict can be healthy. Why do I believe that, when most around me don’t? (Most around me are very nice good Christians, which contributes)

Like, I get really really mad if someone has a desire they’re not expressing to me, or if they have beef and don’t tell me. We can solve this! I care about you! What the hell are we doing here, having less fun unnecessarily?

That sucks, even for me; and I seem way more willing to fight than other people are. And it’s not because I’m not aware of the conflict. I really want other people to like me. I don’t know why I fight and other people don’t. I think it’s because I want other people to fight me, and they don’t.

I don’t tell everyone else! But I tell God and I tell myself, and that helps: it means the desire becomes integrated, and I start looking for ways to solve my life such that it can be met in a healthy way. And that makes me happy.

For the really weird ones, awkward talks or conflict is involved

The first difference I notice is that I am very very okay expressing my wants to myself (and have gotten better over the past few years at that practice). I try to not have any denied desires. Sometimes I act against them, but I don’t pretend they’re not there, no matter how heinous or rude they are

Why do I always get what I want?

In the long run, I mean; I am generally the happiest person at my work, which is already a pretty happy wholesome place, and it would be easy to think I’m just lucky; but I don’t think I am, or at least don’t think that’s it

For example, I’ll cancel my meetups with them pretty often, because they’re weekly, and people don’t need weekly meetings—they need biweekly meetings with the permission to tell you it’s an emergency

But I’ve taken calls in the middle of the night to talk people through crazy things

They love me way more than they love people who want their love, people who will do anything to get it

I don’t do *shit* unless I think it helps them—really helps them, really matters, even especially if they don’t see it

My life is organized, not to win their loyalty, or make them like me, or to appear to be useful; it’s organized to make them more themselves, and the best way I can do that is by being a weird modern sage who chills out all day and drops some wisdom on them

What I do with that free time is wander around praying and trying to understand things so that I can be useful

It wouldn’t work without that! Because I spend so much time doing what it takes to become wise, when my students need help or insight, I have a deep well to draw on

The weird thing is: I’m pretty lazy about this stuff

I don’t check email, or slack; I’m very lax logistically; I’ve basically stacked all my student work (every meeting, even our leaders meeting and large group) into one day a week

I work one fifth as hard as other missionaries I know

There’s more to say here, but this is about loyalty

My students worship me because in some sense I worship them

To whatever extent you want to show up and learn to be more yourself and serve other people, my whole goal in life is to help you

There is no machine in which they’re cogs—they’re all builders, not components

Which makes the machine damn messy and unpredictable, but here’s the thing: my ministry runs better than average, and my student leaders are the best leaders I have ever seen

The way you’re supposed to do campus ministry is you build systems and you encourage students to run those systems

This results in burnout, often, but good practitioners build impressive ministries that way

My way is different: I build people and tell them to be useful somehow

But here’s the thing: I think because I truly, truly want their good, they slowly come to love me

I tell them constantly and explicitly “any one of you is more important to me than the whole institution of this ministry is. I would burn the whole thing down if it helped you become yourself”

it makes me uncomfortable cuz people do baaaad things with that authority, and the kind of person who wants it is a seedy black hole of goodness and affection, twisting everyone around them. Makes me sick to think I might be that.

And I’m not! I don’t want their worship, I want their excellence!

A good friend of mine, who is a more gifted campus missionary and evangelist than me, and the most likeable person I know, came to my ministry one time and was like, “dude, these kids would die for you. My kids like me, your kids worship you.” Hearing that bothered me a little—no, a lot

A thing I was thinking about yesterday: why are so many people loyal to me? There are probably about 50 non-family people who would take a bullet for me, not counting those who would just do it for anyone

More than that: I have a cultlike authority in the ministry I lead that makes me uncomfortable

love that

Love these games

couldn’t agree more, had to reskype

Where far in forest I am laid,
In a place ringed around by stones,
Look for no melancholy shade,
And have no thoughts of buried bones;
For I am bodiless and bright,
And fill this glade with sudden glow;
The leaves are washed in under-light;
Shade lies upon the boughs like snow.

What am I?

A riddle to bless the timeline! Might start to make this a regular thing; if you have favorite beautiful riddles, leave one in the comments!

This one is from Richard Wilbur, a favorite poet of mine, and is a beautiful poem in its own right, beside being an excellent riddle: